If you define "casual" as a graphic quality setting, then this will get 60fps+ at 720p on low settings in modern games. Move to medium-to-high settings or higher resolutions and it will fall apart. You'll be better served by a new AMD Kaveri system... and probably save quite a bit of money while you're at it.Reply

Given that the iris pro is about as powerful as a 640M (a bit more) and the kaveri 7850k targets 7750 levels of performance, which is faster than the desktop 640 and I think possibly the 650, I think it is safe to say that the GPU will be better. I don't expect the CPU to beat 3+ Ghz Haswell, but we we will see! Reply

Nobody really knows the performance of Kaveri yet, but I seriously doubt it will reach even close to HD7750 GDDR5 levels of performance due to bandwidth limitations. And dont forget that is a desktop part. I think 65 watt Kaveri and 65 watt iris pro would be very close in performance, and I actually think the iris pro would be faster. Problem is it is also more expensive, although 529.00 for the 4570R kit is not outrageous.Reply

The issue with the AMD APUs is that they have used different GPUs accross the line, whereas Intel only has 3 active GPU SKUs. So while the GPU in the 95 Watt A-10 7850 labeled only as R7 would likely smoke Iris Pro/HD 5200, the GPU in the 65 Watt A-8 7600 may only perform similarly to the Iris Pro when it finally launches. AMD using different GPUs may have changed though, since they haven't released the A-4, A-6, and A-8 models yet.Reply

EDIT:A quick jaunt over to AMD's website shows that their tendency to use different GPUs has not changed. Even though there is no info about the A-8 7600, one can see that the A-10 7700K has two compute units disabled on the GPU compared to the 7850K.Reply

+1if it can be replaced by a better cooler even if it increases size, i'd like to know . there is simply no other way to get iris pro.. (besides macbook pro 15 and imac 21.5).. but those are not the higher end 65W ones...Reply

(1st post here)I am suprised it isn't mentioned here that Gigabyte is planning to release BRIXs with mobile dGPUs as well. This is interesting and I hope Anandtech will cover this as well and compare their performance with the 4770r. Obviously, having dGPU in a BRIX format defies the need for 4770R somewhat. the combo-setups will be 1) AMD A8 APU + Radeon HD 8890M, 2) Intel CPU + Radeon HD 8890M, 3) Intel CPU + Nvidia GTX 880M. You can even see the stickers Gigabyte put on their BRIX models showcased at the CES in your own gallery here: http://anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/3311#8 .

A request for the full review is also to please have some clear pictures of the BRIX stripped down. I mean, how is the cpu connected to the heatsink and how is the fan exactly positioned? I can imagine myself building a simple, sleightly larger case with some Vesa compatible holes drilled in it to fix the Brix Pro in. This way one could hopefully exchange the stock fan with some quiet 140mm fan and not have to live with the probably insane amount of stocknoise. (And, i could glue the psu inside this larger case as well ;) - Gigabyte, take note of this idea!)

I would also like to suggest to look at how the dimensions of the Gigabyte Pro motherboard relate to the NUC dimensions. Is it 1:1 as far as size goes? Or 1:1 as far as formfactor goes: are the screwholes dimensioned the same?

Lastly, I would like to suggest this: In a lot of the practical gaming tests that are done with iGPUs, I don't see 1080p resolutions being tested. Today this is becoming outdated, since not only the 4770R in this BRIX Pro unit, but also the Kaveri a10-7850k (as well as the 65W(!) rated a10-7800 which I believe shares the same iGPU but is clocked a bit lower cpu wise) are capable of gaming at these resolutions. I mean, see this for what we have coming our way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axyHkKn_e80 pretty insane.So, please Anandtech, start incorporating 1080p gaming in your benchmarks. A game like cs:go on 1080p would be awesome. I am planning to use either the new kaveri or this 4770r for this game but I'm not sure it will handle it.

A rather long first post, but you can understand hopefully that I try to bring some free thoughts to this table. I hope you incorporate these in your review Anandtech! Reply

Very interesting- hadn't seen the dGPU BRIX models. Wonder if they'll ever actually make it to market though- Gigabyte has a pretty poor track record showing things that end up either too late to be relevant, or never. Also wonder how the cooling would work in that footprint, given the GTX 880M would almost double the TDP.Reply

another reason to test cs:go is that it is a steam-released game (by Valve). Seeing how the BRIX Pro is presented at the CES as a steambox as well, testing itt would make sense.I also would like to +1 the suggestion of JasonElmore above to benchmark Battlefield 4 since it is already benchmarked in the youtube video I linked to in my previous post. a clear comparison could be drawn this way. Reply

Please add LZMA2 compression/decompression tests to your benchmarks. Maybe use Pixz ( https://github.com/vasi/pixz ) for both parallel compression and decompression. I tar.xz often so this would be useful for me. I don't remember the last time I used RAR.Reply

a 65W TDP part in that size to be fanless?! I don't think so.. I bet you can swap the fan to some aftermarket fan, like a noctua for example (not sure if it's possible without a modding).Also, gigabyte are the first to use the 4770R and the 4570R, but I bet other OEMs go on board..Reply

Does this system have a regular Gigabyte BIOS/UEFI with options? If so try to lower the iGPU voltage: about -0.1 V should be possible at ~1.25 GHz from what I've seen from Ivy. The CPU could probably also take some tweaking. This should help noise and drive performance up. I'd be curious how far this could push such a thermally & power constrained system.Reply

I REALLY hope we get a detailed gaming test with this running the fastest ram possible. I thought a decent sized issue with the previous Iris Pro test was that the CPU was a good bit slower then all the recent desktop graphic card reviews AND that the TDP limit of the mobile chip might have been limiting Iris Pro some... Also very curious for a proper HTPC review of this, especially the hardest we can push MadVR with it... Yes people are moaning about fan noise but it's NOT impossible to cool a 65w TDP chip via passive means & I'm sure HDPlex or someone else will retrofit their case to accept the guts of a Brix Pro for passive cooling... Then that chip is a monster!Reply

I could use something like that for editing on the go, much smaller than any mITX system.. Much cheaper than a laptop with similar specs.. I could plug it to the hotel's TV via HDMI and get some editing done (weird configuration, I know)Reply

Re: "One of the interesting aspects in the press release was the reference to 64 MB of eDRAM on the Iris Pro HD 5200.".

Apple doesn't just "imply", they outright state it: "The 15‑inch MacBook Pro has a phenomenal display — with the graphics power to match. Its fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor features Iris Pro Graphics with 128MB of embedded memory, which accelerates processor- and graphics-intensive tasks by acting as an ultrafast cache. "

But the Retina MacBook Pro uses the mobile chip, not the desktop chip. Maybe the desktop chip only has 64 MB?Reply

I have been waiting for a NUC or similar to come out with the 5200 Iris Pro graphics for some time. At last. And then disappointment, it only supports 2 monitors not 3. Oh well maybe I just have to go the AsRock mini iTX route after all.

You either have too much, or too little. In the case of games its generally an easy answer; unless you're at 4GB, or rare cases 6GB, you have too much. Its still exceptionally rare for a game to be 64-bit, and they are thus incapable of addressing more than 4GB. The rest is simply up to the system & background tasks.

However, its always preferable to have too much RAM - than too little. Too much generally just means that you ended up paying a bit more - too little means extreme swapping, utterly annihilating performance.

8GB as such is the sweet spot, because its a level which is difficult to reach without the use of specific software - but cheap enough that going down to the 6GB or 4GB levels saves almost no money on a home-build setup.Reply

As was mentioned in the Mac Pro 2013 review, the desktop market needs to evolve to remain viable and relevant. While it’s nice to see these NUC systems finally start popping up, I feel like the price just isn’t right for these new systems. They are clearly as inexpensive to make as a traditional system and so I don’t understand the prices. Shipping costs from China of these tiny machines should represent some sort of savings to the manufacturer.I’d like to see something actually forward looking come from the PC side. Like a standard external power supply unit that is as standard as ATX PSUs are today. I like the thing, it doesn’t have to have the best design on the planet but the price is just so off. $1000 for why? We’re not even accounting for a Windows OS (and maybe we shouldn’t, Linux is actually viable) but still, Windows is another bill. I get that we could find an mSATA drive for $90 but still, it is just slow progress. I feel like if it’s cheap to make (which this thing obviously is), I’d love to see that reflected on the price on day one.Let me put it another way… I’d like to see a standard that is more or less a laptop without an embedded keyboard, mouse or screen or battery. I see so many laptops that I think, “If this didn’t have this crappy screen, if this had NO screen at all” I’d buy it and use it for X. I see $230 laptops with Windows installed and the only problem I see with them is that they are laptops. I know the screens, keyboard and trackpads and batteries on lower end laptops are junk, but are they really next-to-free to include?Looking at the shape of things, it is genius on Apple’s side to make the device circular in order to follow the shape of the gigantic fan. If we boil down the essence of what a desktop is, we say: BIGGER fans= bigger thermal capacity, bring your own monitor, keyboard, and mouse.The Microsoft Store carries exactly zero desktops. Now it’s nice to see what I want become available at all, but it seems strange that it would come at a huge price premium. Apple continues to lead in terms of value and in terms of understand the market (and I find this very frustrating, I wish I could just get my Apple tattoo and “switch” and be done with it, but I keep rooting for open standards that never come.Call it Ultradesk (vs Ultrabook), I think we’re so fantastically overdue a real update on desktops and this device is one that probably after 3-years you’ll be glad you didn’t look at the price at all but at the same time, the same could be said about a Mac Mini.I’m talking about a Microsoft Surface minus the touchscreen and battery… just plain desktop in a quiet and versatile format.Reply

Desktops do definitely need to sort themselves out. I'm not sure if they should to go outright cheap mind.

Desktops have such a long fully usable life span now - even gaming will give you ~5 years and it could be much more for other uses - so there's arguably actually more incentive than before to get everything 'nice'. Not in power terms as such but monitor, keyboard, form factor, noise etc.Reply

There just needs to be less full and mid-tower PCs and a lot more M-ATX (Silverstone TJ08-E sized) and especially ITX cases like the crowd-funded Ncase M1, SG05 or the antec ISK series (for the less-demanding tasks). I totally agree that the desktop market has been way too slow into moving towards the SFF market. Reply

A single eSATA port would be really nice. USB 3.0 is nice and all, but it's just not as compelling as a storage interface. Other than that nit to pick, I think the lesser Gigabyte units would make nice low-power home servers once you connect external bulk storage, and the higher-specced units... Well, I would quite like one in my cubicle at work.Reply

Interesting total power consumption numbers and as a proof of concept. 88 W compares with Apple's stated 85 W max (actual power seems to be significantly less though) for the Mac mini. I really think the R-series could work well in a redesigned mini, if only to avoid the exorbitant prices of the mobile Iris Pro parts. Sadly, the list price of the 4570R is still about $50 higher than the current Ivy Bridge in the low end mini.Reply

It seems to be a great combination of size and power but one thing is really disappointing, i.e. mini DP max resolution is 3200x2000 instead of 4k (according to specification found on the Gigabyte web page). It is a huge omission in my opinion. I almost wanted to order this unit but because of that I will not do that. The other consideration is noise. I want my PC to run as quiet as possible. Reply

Wow, one powerful machine. I did not consider NUC kits before, until this one.It's inevitable to see a kit with the heatsink as part of the case which should give better performance or fanless designs.Reply

So it is loud and overheats when maxed. I fail to see the value to a home owner. Business it looks pretty good as many stores have a high sound level. It is pricey. 650 + 200 + 100 + 100 = 1050 I put 200 for the msata 100 for 8gb ram and 100 for a windows 7 / 8 os.I use pc's and macs for a home owner's ht the quad core mac mini may be a better deal. I still like the idea of a small system pushing limits. Maybe in 3 more generations it will be a lot nicer for home owners vs businesses .Reply

The i5-4570R costs only $8 more than the i5-4200U (acording to ARK Intel), but the i5-4570R brix is $140 more expensive than the i5-4200U brix. Why? More plastic? The extra money did not went in the cooling solution, judgind by this results.

Ayway, i think that form factor is the better than the ULV one. Still tiny but with a much better processor and 2.5" HDD option.Reply

well that is business , you pay more because it is faster and you need the speed. they gouge you because the extra power is worth it to you. I do agree that the small size is nice but I rather it be a little bigger with better cooling. Plus 650 stripped naked is not cheap. The quad mac mini is 679 from apples refurbished store and come with an os 4gb ram and a 1tb hdd. the prcoessor it not far behind the cpu in here. Reply

It went into the extra 128 MB of cache needed for the graphics, there literally is an additional chip in there for this. If you don't want 'gamer' graphics than don't get the Iris Pro. You are paying for in game FPS, with little benefit from the cache in other uses. If this isn't your use, don't get the Iris Pro, the HD 5000 model for a lot less. Of course this one is louder too because Iris Pro is 35 W instead of the 15 watts for the other models. If you don't need Iris pro, then get the smaller quiet model and don't pay for it. Of course, while Iris Pro is loud during games, the low end NUC computers will be < 20 FPS in a lot of games where Iris Pro is ~40 FPS, so the noise definitely gets you something.Reply

I wish there would be cases with room for at least a slim line ODD. I mean those things are supposed to be used as HTPCs. For me they completely miss their point by trying to be as small as possible.Reply

Not too interesting really, unless you desperately need something this small with this much power, but I can't imagine who would. It's too loud and throttles. You can get a marginally larger ITX build with far better cooling, much quieter, and never throttles, and doesn't look as cheap.Reply

It looks like my comment from a few days ago didn't get posted. I currently have a desktop computer and a small NAS box. Something like this could combine both while drastically reducing physical space and power consumption. Noise wouldn't be as critical as in a HTPC, provided it didn't make a lot of noise while performing light tasks, such as web browsing, e-mail, word processing, etc., which is the bulk of what I would do with it. I don't use my desktop PC very intensively, but there are times when I absolutely need to have it around, and being able to do more than just light tasks is definitely a plus. I'd look into using Windows 8.1 Pro under the included Hyper-V in combination with Linux or a second copy of Windows, with one VM for personal use and the other for the NAS side.

As for HTPC, I'd prefer something that can also be used for gaming, so I'm thinking of taking over my daughter's mini-ITX box when she goes to college, and have one VM for HTPC use, and another VM running Windows with its own dedicated graphics card for gaming. It also has a blu-ray player, so I'd eventually be able to get rid of our PS3. In my situation, this box would not work so well for what I have in mind for HTPC.Reply

Ok so maybe you need to reencode some video files or whatever from time to time and this will be presumably nice and quick (and noisy) with this vs say the NUC, but for general day-to-day use presumably it's not going to be pushed to the limit?Reply

I just ordered mine. Couldn't wait for a final review. :-)Thermal performance under combined Prime95 and FurMark load is not very relevant, I think. You just KNOW that these units are not going to have the best cooling. The question is: will the cooling suffice for everyday (non-OC) usage? I strongly believe it will.I'll be using mine as a networked render node (KeyShot). So I'm interested in thermal performance @ 100% CPU load in a real-life application.Reply

Is there a good reason for intel to release Iris Pro as OEM only? Are they worried about motherboard compatibility / specific tuning to take advantage of it, or perhaps worried about supply issues? I don't see why intel cannot release these parts at retail as well as OEM, at least eventually.Reply

Shame there's no micro format for graphics cards.I thought mITX would be a nice size reduction for my new system, but these NUC/BRIX form factor boxes are so much smaller than even the most compact mITX system.If only there were system builder versions of these tiny pcs, especially with a mini GPU option, such as the mobile GPUs that come on gaming laptops.Basically I want a gaming laptop without the laptop!Reply

What I'm interested in is the difference in performance and noise between the 4570r and the 4770r. I notice that they have the same TDP, but the 4570R has lower clock speed, less features (no hyperthreading) and a higher maximum operating temperature. Based on that, in my mind the 4570r should be able to run much quieter and also be much less likely to throttle. Does that make sense, or am I missing something?Reply

ummm... lol? For this much money I can build a computer that is only slightly larger and heavier but which will completely obliterate these boxes in gaming performance. Do you want to pay several hundred more just for smaller size and less weight or do you want to have MUCH more performance instead? Is that even a hard decision?Reply

I'm interested in CPU performance only.I need another quad core render node, but my office is cluttered as it is. I don't like to put systems on the floor and I don't have a spare 'server room'.Then the Brix Pro is an extremely compelling solution. I'd happily pay (I already did actually...) for the much smaller desk real estate required.Reply

The reviewer ponders the logic of maybe using the 4950hq cpu instead. The problem being that the 4950hq retails at roughly twice the cost of the 4770r. So, no, I don't think that would make sense. Anandtech needs to review the new brix 8890 with dedicated R9 m275x GPU as soon as it's available. That could be a far wiser direction for gamers and potential steam box usage.Reply

Still more expensive than configuring a better PC build, that runs way quieter. When I say better, I mean better performance in videogames, as I could include a pretty good GPU for the same price. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2RH3z <- the only reason it is more expensive is because it includes the cost of the OS and a CPU cooler. Factor that out, and you get a much better machine. CPU computing power equal to an i5 for 50USD less, OC capability with the H100i. Wayy better graphics that can run almost every modern game with the exception of a small handful (not BF4) on max settings at 60+ fps. Only disadvantage is the lack of an SSD.Reply

Thing is you can't factor those things out, its oart of the build. The great thing about this is portability.. the size for the performance is phenomenal. You don't need to splash out on a good cooler (though you might have to to get the nosie down...) No PSU.. No case. I'd actually save money buying one of these over the usual upgrade.. but it's noisy.. so meh.Gigabyte dropped the ball, they should have given this a silent option.Reply

I'm using a Mac Mini to drive my 55" TV right now and it works REALLY, REALLY well. And as HTPC system, other than I can't do BluRay (which I've been told that there are workarounds for that) - it's cheaper and smaller and consumes less power than these systems.Reply